Romanticizing mental illness
Romanticizing mental illness has become such a common factor of the modern day media. Wether it is in movies, songs or magazines the attempt to normalize mental illness has transitioned into romanticizing it.
Tweens and early teens will falsely self diagnose themselves with things like depression, anxiety and eating disorders that do not exist but websites like tumblr have taught them that that is what’s beautiful.
A daughter of our family friend who is twelve years old was watching a movie with my brother and i in her room, my brother was sitting on the mattress and accidentally crumbled it and she said “Get off right now i need to clean this, it messes with my OCD” I would've believed her if she hadn't just pulled the mattress up and left it in a bigger mess before sitting on it again and continuing with her movie.
I happen to know she idolizes a Youtuber who deals with OCD and when I asked her why she may think she is dealing with OCD she said because she always keeps her room clean.lack of knowledge and idolization lead this twelve year old to feed off of the image of mental illness that she has seen in movies, the lead role of a movie dealing with mental illness and making it seem cute, almost beautiful , and her taking on the idea that she has OCD because she cleans her room.
This gets quite concerning with illnesses like eating disorders which are so commonly given a mesmerizing portrait on pictures from tumblr and instagram with girls with big thigh gaps wearing skirts and doc martin boots with the hashtags “ pretty”, “beautiful” and “thinspo" (thin inspiration) which could lead into girls wanting to partake in such illnesses when they don't actually have it.
One terrifying image that I came upon once was stickers being sold that when you put them on yourself it looked like you had cut when in reality they were just stickers and this makes kids think that that’s something they should be doing, that thats something trendy to have on your arms, thighs and wrists.
I think normalizing mental illness is something that we definitely should be doing because it helps others feel as though they are not alone, however portraying it as something beautiful in movies needs to stop, or at least show the other side, the not so pretty side of what goes on in a mental illness as well. Therefore people don't mistake their rush of nervousness, their sad days, or their will to clean their room as a sign of mental illness.
To do that and to also keep mental illness normalized so kids, teens and adults who actually deal with them are not afraid to ask for help and don't feel alone, we need adults, friends and family to talk about the illnesses. To educate those who are not educated wether they have mental illness or not, to make it a common and open discussion but also feed knowledge about the subject to kids so common emotions and bodily reactions are not seen as symptoms of mental illness.
Savannah Brown recently filmed a Slam poem called “ Skinny Girls Bleed Flowers” which I think goes over everything I’m trying to get out, that mental illness is not beautiful and that it shouldn't be illustrated that way.
xx
Tweens and early teens will falsely self diagnose themselves with things like depression, anxiety and eating disorders that do not exist but websites like tumblr have taught them that that is what’s beautiful.
A daughter of our family friend who is twelve years old was watching a movie with my brother and i in her room, my brother was sitting on the mattress and accidentally crumbled it and she said “Get off right now i need to clean this, it messes with my OCD” I would've believed her if she hadn't just pulled the mattress up and left it in a bigger mess before sitting on it again and continuing with her movie.
I happen to know she idolizes a Youtuber who deals with OCD and when I asked her why she may think she is dealing with OCD she said because she always keeps her room clean.lack of knowledge and idolization lead this twelve year old to feed off of the image of mental illness that she has seen in movies, the lead role of a movie dealing with mental illness and making it seem cute, almost beautiful , and her taking on the idea that she has OCD because she cleans her room.
This gets quite concerning with illnesses like eating disorders which are so commonly given a mesmerizing portrait on pictures from tumblr and instagram with girls with big thigh gaps wearing skirts and doc martin boots with the hashtags “ pretty”, “beautiful” and “thinspo" (thin inspiration) which could lead into girls wanting to partake in such illnesses when they don't actually have it.
One terrifying image that I came upon once was stickers being sold that when you put them on yourself it looked like you had cut when in reality they were just stickers and this makes kids think that that’s something they should be doing, that thats something trendy to have on your arms, thighs and wrists.
I think normalizing mental illness is something that we definitely should be doing because it helps others feel as though they are not alone, however portraying it as something beautiful in movies needs to stop, or at least show the other side, the not so pretty side of what goes on in a mental illness as well. Therefore people don't mistake their rush of nervousness, their sad days, or their will to clean their room as a sign of mental illness.
To do that and to also keep mental illness normalized so kids, teens and adults who actually deal with them are not afraid to ask for help and don't feel alone, we need adults, friends and family to talk about the illnesses. To educate those who are not educated wether they have mental illness or not, to make it a common and open discussion but also feed knowledge about the subject to kids so common emotions and bodily reactions are not seen as symptoms of mental illness.
Savannah Brown recently filmed a Slam poem called “ Skinny Girls Bleed Flowers” which I think goes over everything I’m trying to get out, that mental illness is not beautiful and that it shouldn't be illustrated that way.
xx
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